But a giant underground cathedral made from hexagonal rock, with transparent floors and flowing water? Who could argue with that?

Za Architects is a German architectural firm that has set its eyes on the red planet in a big way. The firm has come up with a way to actually build human-habitable spaces on Mars, with robot construction workers.

The idea is that huge portions of the martian bedrock are made of basalt, a material stronger than steel. Sending robots to Mars to dig into the bedrock, creating large hollowed out areas for people to live in, could set the stage for a stable colony of human life.

“Curiosity sooner or later will bring human to Mars and wouldn’t it be nice to have permanent station to explore it?” Arina Ageeva of ZA Architects told Dezeen. “It seems pretty logical to use caves as the main protective structure of the colony.”

“Right now it is may not be possible, because such robotics do not exist, but generally we don’t see anything unrealistic in this proposition,” she said.

What do you think? Take a look through the photos above and let us know: Would you go live in a martian cave as nice as this?